Fifth Elul Shiur - Tzfat 17 Elul 5772 Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh (Notes taken during the shiur by Moshe Genuth. Not reviewed by Harav Ginsburgh)

Transcription

1 Fifth Elul Shiur - Tzfat 17 Elul 5772 Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh (Notes taken during the shiur by Moshe Genuth. Not reviewed by Harav Ginsburgh) Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li. We re now in the heart of chodesh Elul, tomorrow evening as we said is the birthday of the two great luminaries, the BST and the Alter Rebbe. The Birthday is the day on which the soul enters the world and when it s an allinclusive soul, it s a common birthday for all of us, when the soul root enters the world and shines very strongly giving it strength to complete its mission on earth. These two souls came together to give us the way of Mashiach, to pave the way for Mashiach. There are many ways to explain the relationship between the bst the founder of Chassidut and the Alter Rebbe the founder of Chabad within Chassidut. One of them is that they are compared to the tefilin of the hand, is on the heart, which means that it connects and rouses the heart and the head tefilin which is above the mind (on the head) arousing it to Hashem. The BST is the tefilin of hand, on the heart, which we put on first, just as the BST came first. After him two generations later came his spiritual grandson, 47 years later, the Alter Rebbe, who is compared to the head tefilin. The relationship between these two souls is like the heart to the mind, both have to be connected both to Hashem and to Am Yisrael. To arouse the heart is ahavat Yisrael, loving all of Am Yisrael. To arouse the mind, especially the eyes, a projection of the mind, to see Divinity, to see Divine Providence in the world, and to actually see above that, the essence of Hashem, which reveals that all of reality is naught relative to Hashem. This is what the Alter Rebbe teaches us, that קמיה כלא חשיב,כולא the expression quoted from the Zohar many times in the Tanya. The first meditation we have, especially when we don tefilin, is that putting on the yad tefilin, is like putting on the BST and then the head tefilin is the Alter Rebbe. There is something holier about the head tefilin, still the hand tefilin comes first the heart before the mind. The women here in the ezrat nashim are thinking, this is great for the men, to meditate on this, but what about the women? In addition to the fact that the Arizal teaches us that one s wife whomever is married the tefilin belong to both, so the wife can project to her husband that every morning, we together are putting on the BST and the Alter Rebbe. But, there must be something that applies equally to men and women. In what context do we connect to the BST and the Alter REbbe, especially on their birthday. AS we said, to put the hand tefilin on is to arouse the heart, or in the Torah, to open the heart. There is a power in the BST to open up my heart to my fellow Jew, and we have a mitzvah in the Torah to love Hashem and to love Am Yisrael, so actually the Alter Rebbe himself (the BST s spiritual grandson) when asked which love is greater answered that the love of Israel is greater, because you love what your beloved loves. There is something about you that makes me love what you love, extending out to everything that You yourself loves. So to love a Jew, who is a part of God, and as the 1

2 אהבתי אתכם אמר ה says, Torah ', so to love Hashem is to love Israel. That is the consummate love. This very vort, that to love a Jew is the consummate love of God is a Chabad chap. But, if the BST would be here, and certainly he is, sitting with us, he would say that if you take a Jew and squeeze him out to his last drop, the very last drop is one simple drop of love of Am Yisrael. That is the end. That is how the BST would explain it. He doesn t have to say it intellectually, but simply that the essence of a Jew is to love a Jew. That is a pure heart. There is heart and mind, there is the relationship between them. There is also the question, which controls which. The mind is intellect, the heart emotion. First we have to understand what the heart s pure essence is. For the BST it is the last drop that comes out, a pure drop of Ahavat Yisrael. You don t have to explain to that drop that loving Israel is greater than loving Hashem, because Hashem loves Israel. What is the pure mind. Mind is perception, while the heart is feeling. Pure mind is to perceive God. The pure Alter Rebbe is to perceive, including all of the senses (sight, hearing, the five senses, six senses, etc., but all of them perceive), Hashem to the extent that I perceive that aspect of Divinity that reveals itself in this finite word in my conscious daily routine in life, which is called Divine Providence but even beyond that, the very essence of God is all, and all is God. That s the essential perception of the Chassidishe mind that was revealed and taught and given to all of us by the Alter Rebbe. Another question is: who s in control? Control is to establish the relationship, the dependency, that one is dependent on the other. We know from the Zohar and from the Tanya that שליט על הלב,מח the mind rules over the heart, which simply means that the external aspect of the emotions can go off the path, the straight path can only be known (without going right or left from the path) with the mind overseeing the heart. That s the simple explanation. If we say the pure drop of heart is loving another Jew, than that is it s innermost point, and it is above the mind. To control means to lead. So this point leads the mind. So it says in the Zohar that in spite of this principle that the mind should control the heart, it also says that the innermost point of the heart should control the mind. But, even more deeply, there is an innermost point of the mind that should control the innermost point of the heart and so it continues forever and ever. In the final analysis you have to take a vote, who s going to be on top. In Chassidic tradition, the two greatest Chassidim were Rebbe Isaac of Homil and Rebbe Hilel of Paritch. Rebbe Isaac who merited to be a chassid of the Alter Rebbe for 18 years voted for the mind. But Rebbe Hilel, who by hashgachah did not merit to be by the Alter Rebbe (he began with his son, the Mittler Rebbe, initially he was a chassid of Chernobyl) after he became a Chabadnik, he still voted for the heart, for the BST. You need both. Still, these are the two possibilities. The way to map this recursion is found in a deep discourse by Rebbe Hilel who explains what it means that first the mind over the heart, then the inner essence of the heart over the mind, etc. We probably got the idea more or less. We have the BST and the Alter Rebbe and this is the way they function together, going back and forth with who is over who, the grandfather and his grandson. Everything as we said is by hashgachah. The BST says the greatest manifestation of this can be found in what we learn every day especially the regular shiurim we learn. 2

3 One of these is the Hayom Yom, a collection of short sayings that the Friedeger Rebbe gave over from himself and his father, etc. Today s Hayom Yom is very pertinent. It talks about Ahavat Yisrael, the essence of the BST, the heart to open your heart to another Jew. In the Torah we read two weeks ago that as soon as you open your heart, you open your hand and give as much as you possibly can. The mind opens the eyes. In our generation, the Rebbe said, that what is missing for the coming of Mashiach is to open your eyes and see that he has already come. That is a Chabad an Alter Rebbe understanding: open your eyes. For the BST to open your heart is to open your hand. The Talmud says that דעינא באובנתא דליבא תליא,שוריינא the seeing of the eyes is dependent on the understanding of the heart. The word שוריינא is a permutation of Shneur.(שניאור) This is said to teach us that on Shabbat one may heal the eyes, because the life of the heart depends on them. So this saying reflects the relationship and dependency between the Alter Rebbe and the BST. This is an ancient Chabad saying from the sages, that says that the vision of the eyes relates to the inner understanding of the heart, the origin of the ability of the eye to open up and see Godliness. Getting back to Hayom Yom, the Rebbe speaks of Ahavat Yisrael and says that everyone of us should aspire to see sight is Chabad every Jewish soul as that soul exists in its origin in the original thought of Adam Kadmon, קדומה דאדם הקדמון.מחשבה After the initial contraction of Hashem s light, the first thing brought into existence (not physical, above all worlds) is the Primordial Man and he has his initial thought which contains all the souls that will be born into (אדם קדמון) all the worlds. And the Alter Rebbe says that when you see a soul in that origin, you see all of his descendants to be until the end of all time, Mashiach and techiyat Hametim. You don t see an individual there, but all the souls that will derive from him. Why is this important, seeing a soul this way? Because then you realize and be,מתפעל aroused spiritually that if I do him a favor, if I do this Jew a little favor is not just for him personally but for him and all his descendants forever. This thought, seeing a Jew in his root and thereby uniting him with all the souls that will derive from him is enlarging the presence of that Jew infinitely and also arousing the emotion I have when I do him a favor, like giving him tzedakah. A very profound and beautiful thought. But, this is all a Chabad vort. Because to see a Jew in the initial thought of Adam Kadmon, is that something the BST would say? Maybe if he had an elite group of intellectuals. But for the simple Jews that he loved, that he gathered together, he would not express this in this way. Who among them would know what this means in the first place? Second, you have to say that I will do a Jew a favor it s because I m doing a favor for all his descendants, so what? If it s not enough for me to do it just for you, because I love you, it s nothing. It s not to diminish the importance of what the Alter Rebbe said, just to explain the difference between how the heart would express something and how the mind would. The Alter Rebbe is trying to contemplate his grandfather, trying to give us a meditation that would infinitely enhance our desire to give, to do good to another Jew. But, for the BST, in some deep mysterious, the way to this point is direct. The entire Tanya is a long and short way, which means that in order to reach the inner point of the heart, you have to take a detour through the mind. Because if you try to reach it directly you will reach the heart s external aspect and never reach the inner aspect. This is the 3

4 truth for almost every one of us. Nonetheless, in the beginning of Chassidut there was an arousal from Above, because Hashem wanted to bring the light of Mashiach into the world. So, that first generation was definitely able to reach the innermost point of the heart, and squeeze out a single drop of unadulterated Ahavat Yisrael. That s the BST. But, they need each other, the Alter Rebbe and the BST. We will sing again, לדודי ודודי לי,אני with the אני לדודי being the arousal of the BST, the bride turning to the chattan, that s the heart. The second part, לי,ודודי the chassan now descending and uniting with his bride, that is the mind descending to the heart. The first half is the BST ascending to the Alter Rebbe and the second half the Alter Rebbe descending to the BST. You don t have to be male and don tefilin to connect to the BST and the Alter Rebbe. You have to open your heart (the BST) and try to see a Jew in his root, with all that implies. A pure opening of the heart, bringing into ourselves a little spark of the BST. Just as every Jew has a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, said Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, so every Jew has a spark of the BST, as he saw in a prophetic vision the BST as big as a mountain and he split into 600,000 sparks, and each, like a hologram, contained a complete figure of the BST. Each of the little BST entered the heart of each soul root. We can also say that there s a little Alter Rebbe in the mind of each of us. So when we open our heart, we are bringing the BST into each of us. When we open the mind perceiving true Divinity the first origin of the soul in Divinity which enhances the BST in the heart, that is connecting with the Alter Rebbe. Rebbe Isaac also described the Alter Rebbe as an eye doctor. So if you need someone to correct your vision go to the Alter Rebbe. Part II (from Hebrew) There is a nigun from the Alter Rebbe that the Rebbe taught, לך נפשי,צמאה a nigun of longing. Hashem should bring upon us a good and sweet new year, and bring us the Mashiach. A good evening. We ll start with a story from the Rebbe, about Rosh Hashanah that can give us all kavanot for the blowing of the Shofar. Once in the 1950s, between 5710 and 5720, a Jew called a family in Crown Heights and asked them that he really wants, on RH especially during the tekiot of the Shofar to be by the Rebbe. He wanted to stay with them. I happily agreed. He arrived on erev RH. He wanted to be as close as possible to the Rebbe. They advised him that he should get there as early as he good and try to get a place near the Rebbe. He did this, and found a place as close as he could. He stood there, awaiting the Rebbe s blowing of the Shofar. The Rebbe came down to the shul with a number of shofarot, as was his custom. With the most earnest and serious face, the Rebbe begin the chapters of Tehilim before the blowing of the Shofar. This Jew said every word with the Rebbe. All 7 repetitions of chapter 47. This Jew is at the height of his kavanah. The Rebbe says the berachot on the Shofar and takes the first shofar, but no sound comes out. Absolute silence. He takes another shofar, the same thing happens. The congregation is very anxious. The same thing happens with the third shofar. Everyone is out of their minds. And this entire time, this Jew who is standing near the Rebbe has a very strong kavanah. He was married for 9 years, and had no children. He 4

5 wanted to be by the Rebbe so that in merit of his blowing of the Shofar, he would have children. But, the air is like electricity. The Rebbe trying to blow and no sound coming out. So with all his personal pain of this Jew, he suddenly thinks that perhaps my strong kavanah is what is stopping the sounds from coming out. So he said to Hashem: I forfeit a child for the congregation. At that very moment, the Rebbe takes another shofar and perfect sounds come out. After the shofar, this Jew leaves and starts crying profoundly. You can guess the continuation. At the end of the year he had a child. And then, a few years later, he brought the little boy to get a cup of blessing. After the holidays, the Rebbe would pass out a cup of blessing. He didn t tell anyone this story. He passes before the Rebbe, and everything is very quick, there s about a second to stand before the Rebbe before you re pushed. The Rebbe looks at him and asks: Is this the child from the blowing of the shofar. He was so startled that he dropped the child, nothing happened to the child. After this, he told the Chassidim his story. The one who told this story is the son of the people who hosted him for RH, who himself is already an old man. On RH we ask Hashem to write and seal us for a good year in physical and spiritual matters, in children, life and livelihood all in plenty. All this should be both in matter and spirit. When do we ask each of these in particular. The shofar blowing includes three sounds: tekia, shevarim, and teru ah. The tekia is a simple sound. The shevarim is like a moan, and the teru ah is like crying. The teki a is a call out to God. All three are necessary. In the Arizal it says that the simplest kavanah in blowing the shofar is to awaken the merit of the Patriarchs, and the sounds correspond to them in order. In the heart, the Patriarchs are chesed, gevurah, and tiferet. In the source of the emotions in the mind, they correspond to chochmah, binah, and da at. They are called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. These are the different aspects that are revealed to each of them. To Abraham it was chesed, to Isaac it was gevurah, and to Jacob is was tiferet. This relates to the verse, אדם ידעי תרועה ה ' באור פניך יהלכון.אשרי From this we learn that teru ah is da at, and Jacob. Jacob s offspring were all holy. Avraham and Yitzchak had non-holy children, Ishma el and Esau. But, Yaakov s offspring were all holy. So we understand that teru ah is related to children. One who prays for children cries. The verse states, אתה אני היום ילדתיך,בני a verse about the Mashiach who must be given birth to during the blowing of the shofar the shofar is likened to the womb of Ima. Mashiach is described as coming from the God of Jacob. Da at tells me that the main thing is to pray for children, be they physically or spiritually. Children come before life and before livelihood. What about life? The verse says, ימים בימינה בשמאלה עושר וכבוד.אורך From this verse we learn that right goes together with the extension of life. While livelihood, wealth is related to the left. Abraham is the right and Isaac the left. So in correspondence with the sounds of the Shofar, the time to have in mind one s life, is during the sound of teki ah the simple sound. This is life. Shevarim, when does a person moan, when is he broken? When he is unsuccessful and doesn t have livelihood. This is a מסכן in the Tanach. He is broken. Shever (שבר) the root of Shevarim means livelihood במצרים).(שבר When there is 5

6 none, the heart is broken. But thanks to the Shevarim of Isaac, we awaken mercy from above and bring down livelihood. The order is then life, livelihood, and children in the order of the sounds of the יעקב says, shofar. But, the true order is that Jacob is the choice of the Patriarchs. The verse the reason that Abraham was saved from the furnace was because he,אשר פדה את אברהם would give birth to Jacob. The same was true for Isaac. The fact that Jacob continued to give birth is in merit of his son, Joseph. The verse, תלדות יעקב יוסף,אלה teaches that all the offspring of Jacob are in merit of Joseph. In any case, the children correspond to teru ah, Jacob. This is just to begin meditating about this wonderful story we just heard about this Jew who came to the Rebbe to try and have children. Now, we come to the main point of this story. This is an excellent story to have in mind before the blowing of the shofar this year. It says that the Mashiach comes when we are not thinking of him, הדעת.בהיסח He has to be given birth to. When? During the blowing of the shofar. What does היסח הדעת mean? It means that I stop thinking about him. There is something that is so essential for us, like children for this Jew, but because his kavanah is so strong, and with his kavanah he is applying pressure, he is like suffocating suffocating the Rebbe himself as it were so much that he can t get a sound out of the Shofar. A terrible thought to think of. So what does he need to do? He needs to let go a little. With good intent you can push very hard, but no sound comes out. But, if you for a moment let go, then suddenly all the effort you exerted earlier, will suddenly bear fruit. The BST says that the main revelation of a mitzvah comes after the mitzvah is complete. You may think that nothing happened after all your effort, you re on your way home, and then suddenly the Divine light is revealed. All your effort suddenly reveals the Divine light, but only once you let go. There is a sense of self in the kavanah. Here he didn t forego his kavanah. When the Rebbe couldn t blow the shofar, he didn t give in. He just said, I m not going to think about having children for the benefit of the congregation. From this we learn that sometimes the individual can stop the congregation from what it needs. Sometimes, even if what I want is the best thing, for the benefit of others, I may have to forego what I need, and just ask Hashem to give his blessing to the entire people. This is not something simple at all. When we hear this story, there is a very innate understanding of what is going on that we all have. But, to be able to express it properly is something else. To understand the point is in the heart, but to say it clearly, that is the sight of the eyes. This story can be explained in a simple way with the saying of the sages that whomever prays in merit of a friend is answered first. This is learnt from Avraham who prayed for Avimelech and he was answered first. We read about God s opening Sarah s womb on Rosh Hashanah, just before the blowing of the Shofar. The merit of Abraham s prayers for Avimelech are what opened her womb and gave her Isaac. So there must be a strong connection between the two. But, let s see if they re exactly the same. In the story that Avraham prayed fro Avimelech, it was because all the openings of the body in Avimelech s household has been shut and he prayed that they be open. He prayed for what Avimelech needed and he was the first to be answered with Sarah s womb being open. The other in this case was an evil non-jew, but that was only because 6

7 there were no Jews at the time, so this is not an essential point. But, the question can be posed: When he prayed for Avimelech, it was after the angel had told him that he would have a child in another year. When he prayed, did he say to God: Either he gives birth, or me? Did he say, I forego my child so that Avimelech can have one? This is a very difficult thing to say. But, the question more generally is: Is it possible to pray for the same thing for someone else, without foregoing the same thing for myself? We might say that this question requires us to understand the difference between the revealed tradition and the concealed. According to the revealed tradition, there is no reason to say that one foregoes the other. There are an infinite number of levels of praying for someone else. There are stories where there is a couple who simply physically cannot have children. To change such a degree, the entire order of creation has to be overtuned. The world has to be recreated. There are easier cases, like a Jew who cannot receive all three things: children, life, and livelihood, so one of them is held back from Above so that the person have good life and livelihhod. In such a case it might be easier for the BST for instance to help this person. There are many different levels of how a tzadik works in these cases. Returning to our question: To truly pray for another about the same thing that I need, do I have to let go of my own needs. Likewise in regard to היסח הדעת there many different levels. To forget is one thing, to forego is another. Returning to Mashiach. The literal meaning is that we need to forget about it for a moment. Does it mean I should give up on the Mashiach? It doesn t sound so, but perhaps that is what it means. There is a famous saying from the Alter Rebbe that the Mashiach that everyone is waiting for will never come, but the Mashiach that will come, no one wants. If this is the case, the picture of Mashiach the way that people envision him will never be a reality, it s all imagination, then in order to really forge a path, we have to give up on this picture. I hear that the shofar sounds are simply not coming out, I m suffocating them. Now, the more what someone wants is further from the natural state of things, like a couple that is absolutely sterile, then one needs to act more in the concealed dimension even to the point of completely and explicitly foregoing what we are praying for. We are building here a yud-hei-vav-hei. The revealed are the vav-hei, and the concealed are the yud-hei. My prayer for anything that I need in life is in malchut, as it says, תפלה,ואני I am prayer. Malchut is always praying for what it lacks. Malchut is the moon and it is lacking light. So the malchut is always praying to be filled. Like King David, who always feel like he is about to die, so every moment he has to ask for life anew. To pray for what you need, a great mitzvah in the Torah, is in malchut. Here too, from the BST we know that even when something hurts, I have some problem, it should first of all be connected with the congregation. Not to necessarily forego what I need, but to connect it with the congregation. So if my finger hurts, I should pray for the finger of the congregation that also hurts. I do have to leave my own private scope a bit, but I don t have to forego what I need, just connect it with the needs of the congregation. When we ascend to the level of the congregation we are ascending from the hei of Havayah to the vav of Havayah. Praying just for myself is the lower hei. But, if I connect what I need with the needs of the many, the Jewish people, then I have moved to the vav. But, there are things that this 7

8 alone is not enough. There are things that I have to forego what I need altogether. When I come to the level of foregoing in favor of the congregation then I have ascended to the That Jew in the story thinks that he should indeed have a child. In the.והנסתרות לה' אלקינו revealed dimension this is indeed the reason for his life. Yet, God knows better. To forego my own personal redemption for the interest of the many, that introduces me to the hidden dimension. Let s add another question. In this story, did this Jew forego his kavanah for a child so that the Rebbe could blow the Shofar. In Avraham s story with Avimelech, he didn t have to forego his own need especially since he received an explicit promise from Hashem that he will have a children. But, in the case were there is a couple that has no physical ability to have children, what does the person have to forego? According to the BST, the person has to forego his reward in the World to Come. This is a tremendous chiddush. If we order the level of difficulty in each of these cases. What is harder: for the Jew in the story to forego having a child to allow the shofar to sound, or for the BST to forego his World to Come to allow this couple to have children. We have to say that the greater novelty is when an individual is willing to sacrifice himself for another individual. Not when he does so for the congregation, for klal Yisrael. To forego for the klal, that corresponds to the hei, Ima. To forego my World to Come (my Ima) altogether, so that this couple have children, something that is against all of nature, that requires a recreation of the World. And that comes from Abba, from chochmah, wisdom. So we have here a yud-hei-vav-hei in self-sacrifice. Sometimes even during prayer a person cries a true cry to pray for himself. More than that is connecting one s needs with those of the congregation. More than this is foregoing one s needs for the congregation (this requires הדעת,היסח which is da at). Finally, the highest is to forego one s needs in merit of another individual. The order here is individual-congregation-congregation-individual. Why is it that the highest level is with an individual Jew? Because every Jew is a part of God above. Could we add a fifth level to this model? Seemingly yes. Foregoing myself for God. Is this more than giving up myself for some other person? Hashem is the greatest individual. If we ve explain that the concealed is for God, this means that you believe that God has hidden intents and there are an infinite hidden levels of how much the kavanah is hidden. Because the keter is the source for both chochmah (wisdom) and binah (understanding), everything comes from the Keter. It says that the inner aspect of Abba is the inner aspect of Atik Yomin. The kavanah of giving yourself completely for the benefit of another Jew, that is the inner aspect of giving yourself over entirely to God. Our meditation then here is based on the story. It s worthwhile to spread this meditation together with the story it is related to. There is a famous story from the heiliger (holy) Ruzhiner, who would tell a story from the BST or his grandfather who said that even though I can t do what they did, all I can do is tell the story, still in merit of retelling this story, we should merit to have a good and sweet year. * 8

9 We ll continue a bit more. Everything needs to be connection with the weekly Torah portion. What is the connection of this story to parashat Ki Tavo. It doesn t contain many of the 613 mitzvot, but it contains the third to last, the 611 th mitzvah in the Torah. The two final mitzvoth are in Vayelech, Hakhel and writing the Torah that each Jew should write a Torah scroll. The 611 th mitzvah is a very important one, according to which the Rambam based his Hilchot de ot: to be like God. To walk in God s path. The sages explain that just as God is merciful, you should be merciful, etc. The Rambam notes 10 things that we should follow God s conduct in. Being holy, patient, full of kindness, earnest, mighty, strong. Where is this verse written? At the end of Ki Tavo there is a rebuke. There are two instances of rebuke in the Torah. At the end of Bechukotai, where there are 49, 7 squared curses. And here there are twice as many 98. There, they are from God, here they are from Moshe Rabbeinu. Even though there are twice as many, the sages say they are weaker. Still they are a rebuke and we read them just before Rosh Hashanah. The rebukes of Bechukotai are also read one week before Shavu ot. There and here, before the rebukes come blessings, very strong blessings. The blessings of Bechukotai end with the pasuk, אתכם קוממיות,ואולך I will lead you upright. Here too, there are many strong blessing and only after them the rebuke commences. There are two verses in the blessings, where this mitzvah appears, בדרכיו,והלכת You יקימך ה ' לך לו לעם קדוש כאשר נשבע לך כי תשמור את מצות ה' begins, shall walk in His ways. The verse appears only once in the entire Tanach. The יקימך words, The first.אלקיך והלכת בדרכיו commentaries connect it with the word,,קוממיות upright, meaning that a Jew should be upright, upstanding. He shall lift you, as God promised you. When did God promise us we would be a holy people? Either during the giving of the Torah or when he promised Abraham. The continuation of the verse, תשמור את מצות ה ' אלקיך והלכת בדרכיו.כי This is the first verse. The second, its pair, is כל עמי הארץ כי שם ה ' נקרא עליך ויראו ממך.וראו This is a verse that is even more well-known. Earlier we spoke of the mitzvah of tefilin, Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkanos says that this verse is referring to tefilin, which cause the nations to fear you. ליהודים says, There is another explanation from the sages that regarding Purim where it suggests ויקר where the final word refers to tefilin, where the word,היתה אורה ושמחה וששון ויקר the word in our parashah, שם ה ' נקרא עליך.כי The tefilin donned on the head. Which is why so many non-jews feared the Jews then and converted. What this mitzvah is saying is that a Jew should be like God. Seemingly, if there is such a mitzvah, what need is there for any other mitzvoth? And yet, there are another 612 mitzvoth. This is alluded to a bit in the verse itself, תשמור את מצות ה ' אלקיך, והלכת בדרכיו,כי suggesting that you can t be like God if you don t keep the mitzvoth. The connection between the first and second verse is that the nations see a Jew and fear him because he resembles the Almighty in his conduct. This is the literal connection between the two. What then is God s Name upon you? It is the revelation of Godliness that surrounds every Jew. Apparently this is exactly what is seen when a Jew dons the head tefilin. But, the literal understanding again is that when you act like the Almighty and resemble Him, that makes others fear you. To connect this with the story about the shofar blowing we told earlier, we have to note that there are many things we should resemble the Almighty in. There is a book of 9

10 the Ramak s called Tomer Devorah. He is buried here in Tzfat. This is the most important book to teach this principle of resembling God. The book deals with the 13 principles of God s mercy and on each principle he writes, just as God is this way, you too should act this way. Just as the Torah describes as it were God s character, we too should strive to have the same character. The greatest tzadikim said great things about this book from the Ramak. He begins with the words that the Almighty is a עלוב,מלך a suffering king. Just as God surrounds all worlds and is in all worlds, he also suffers all the worlds, which means to carry them. God carries all our transgressions, and he carries all the insults we cast at Him. This is the first of the 13 measures of God s mercy, He is אפים,ארך patient. Why? Because He believes in us. The highest power of the soul is belief. The ability to suffer, in all its meaning, comes from pure faith. All because God believes in us. The BST said that just as we believe in God, we should also believe in every Jew. We learn this from God Himself, just as He believes in every Jew, so should you. Now, the idea here is that just as He foregoes Himself every moment, He does this by contracting His light in order to create a world (it will eventually give him pleasure, but for now it only insults Him); likewise, you too should forego yourself. Let s return to the pasuk for a moment. יקימך God shall uplift you. On the one hand a Jew should be selfless, yet a Jew is a carrier of opposites and should at the same time walk upright, especially facing our enemies (someone who is our enemy is God s enemy). The verse s end is ויראו ממך they shall fear you and the middle is בדרכיו,והלכת You shall walk in his ways. The commentaries explain that even though there are many traits that God has that we should mimic, there is one particular character trait that we should which is stated explicitly in the verse, holy, being a holy people. The first thing the Rambam mentions after compassionate and merciful is being holy. The first 3 traits the חנון רחום sefirot. These correspond to the intellectual.חנון-רחום-קדוש are: Rambam brings correspond to chochmah and binah. The holy corresponds to da at. Man is different because of his da at. It says that a false God is sterile. If a Jew is holy, the non-jew fears him, because he can sense it. If a Jew is holy all of creation fears him, just as everything fears the Almighty. When a Jew is holy, holiness is an upright stance coupled with selflessness. This is called the might of selflessness הבטול).(תקיפות So on the one hand he is holy, and because of this he can suffer everything. He is also able to forego everything he needs. This man who forwent his needs for the benefit of others, he was great. God s greatness is His willingness to forego Himself and make room for the Worlds. To understand how by being holy we can suffer and forego all we need is an important topic in Ayin Beis. The true holiness is the king s self exaltedness. During the 10 days of רוממות ( king This is called the essential self exaltation of the.המלך הקדוש say, repentence we Because of his essential height in relation to other, he is able to suffer.(העצמית של המלך everything in the world. In the world of chaos there were also kings, but they fell and died. Why? Because as exalted as they were, they couldn t stand anyone else being this way. This is the exaltation of the kelipah, which is actually a feeling of self, hubris. In the World of Chaos, following chesed, for gevurah to receive anything, chesed has to die. In order to ensure that one kingdom does not touch someone else s, there has to be 10

11 contraction, a feeling of selflessness. The difference between the world of chaos and the rectified world is that the kings in the first can never allow room for anybody but themselves. They cannot stand being under anyone else. But, in the world of rectification, the self-exaltedness is actually a sense of selflessness. The king has no reality to his own, he is not trying to be great in and of himself. His greatness is his selflessness. Just as the king doesn t have a sense of self, so he doesn t incite antagonism. From the words מרום וקדוש exalted and holy, we learn that they depend on one another. Such a king can descend to the lowest place to help his people there. All of God s compassion comes from being holy. This is the main Jewish characteristic, that we are holy both in our consciousness and in our procreation. They interdepend on one another. To see that God s Name is upon us is a unification of Ze er Anpin and malchut, as it says, כל עמי הארץ כי שם ה ' נקרא עליך.וראו The amazing thing is that the non-jew can sense this, can feel it. The higher unification appears upon a Jew and that is what strikes fear in the heart of the non-jews. From this interpretation we can learn that the goal of every Jew should be a shadchan. Da at, consciousness, is to be a match maker, to be engaged in the toil of yichudim (unifications). From the power of which mitzvah do we always unify? From this mitzvah, You shall walk in His ways. We ll end with something for the children in the cheider. We like showing the structure in the Torah, the wonders of your Torah. We have yet to say something about גל עיני 118:18: the coming year, What equals 773? We very much the pasuk in Psalms This is related to Chabad, the Alter Rebbe the eye doctor. These.ואביטה נפלאות מתורתך (גל עיני ואביטה נפלאות) letters can be arranged as a rectangle: 6 by 4. Just the first three lines equal exactly 773. So we ask God to open our eyes so we can see the wonders. Since the wonders come from Torah and Torah comes from chochmah (wisdom), this is related to another topic the Rebbe Rashab explains in Ayin Beis that there are two types of wonders. The fact that it says wonders in the plural it means that there are two, specifically. There is one wonder of wisdom which corresponds to the Alter Rebbe, whose source is in the sealed mind סתימאה),(מוחא which also has two aspects. It s inner aspect is the wisdom that is called the דאור חוזר,מקיף which rises into God s essence, but as it rises, it conceals the pleasure of the crown, its wonder is that the pleasure is transformed into wisdom. The inner, inner aspect of chochmah, the inner aspect of the sealed wisdom סתימאה) (מוחא becomes pleasure. Even though these two things are different, but by a true intellect, pleasure is his wisdom. This is how wisdom ascends. But, wisdom when it is revealed, there is another wonder. That is like the infinite light that pierces the place of the contraction of God s infinite light. The power of ray of light is to include everything, even opposites, that is about to be created, so the wisdom which connects all the sefirot, can create yichudim. The power of the descent of the wisdom already includes its higher power, the wonder in it. This is.אאלפך חכמה called Now, מתורתך,נפלאות wonders of your Torah are first of all the wonders of the Torah text. 11

12 יקימךיהוהלולעםקדושכאשרנשבעלךכיתשמראתמצותיהוהאל היךוהלכתבדרכיו There are exactly 60 letters in this verse. The next verse: וראו כל עמי הארץ כי שם י-הוה נקרא עליך ויראו ממך This verse contains 37 letters, or the value of yechidah.(יחידה) Now a more difficult question: what is the connection between 60 and is the golden section of 60. The most pleasing ratio to the eye is called the golden section and when we have 60, we divide it into 23 and 37, its golden section. Altogether, there are 97 letters in these two verses. This would be the next number in this additive series (23, 37, 60, 97, ). 23 is the value of chayah,(חיה) the fourth level of the soul. The world of rectification is mostly dependent on one woman. The redemption depends on righteous women. There is one woman in particular whose reality is Mashiach, she is Meheitavel, as we ve explained many times. Meheitavel was the wife of the 8 th king of the World of Chaos who did not die. Her name, מהיטבאל is equal to 97. She is the essence of Mashiach because in her name she is constantly performing the unification between God s two aspects, the Almighty.(מה בן) the Names that equal 45 and 52,(שכינתיה) and His Divine Presence (קודש אבריך הוא ( 97 is the 26 th prime number. Every number of letters has a particular shape it can be figured in. Let s do this: יקימך יהוהלול עםקדושכאש רנשבעלךכיתש מראתמצותיהו האלהיךוהלכת בדרכיווראוכ לעמיהארץכיש םיהוהנקרא עליךויר אוממך This is the form of inspiration without the corners. According to the Arizal the main segulah of this number is that it divides into 45 and 52 ובן).(מה Let s just note one thing in this shape. The 2 external perimeters of this shape have 52 letters, the other letters are 42. The midpoint of 97 is 49. The 49 th letter is the letter.ך Around the midpoint, there are many concentric perimeters. The first has 8 letters. The next perimeter has 16 letters. The next has 20. The next has 24. The final has 28. So the external two perimeters have 52 letters. Always the בן is the external and the מה is the inner. The main thing is that God uplift us, all thanks to our following in His ways. There is כי תשמר words, a non-chassidic explanation. He says something very special: that the commandments, mean that even though you perform the,את מצות ה' אלקיך והלכת בדרכיו you will still be able to follow God. The meaning is that to follow God means to extricate oneself from the world. But, mitzvoth are performed with physical matters. So even though you follow God, you will still be able to perform mitzvoth. Someone who is seemingly at a high personal level, maybe meditating on Torah or whatever else, how can he still perform a mitzvah after that? Yet, this is the novelty here. 12

13 A chassid would say the opposite: even though a Jew is engaged in a mitzvah, in the mundane, he is still able to keep himself extricated from the world, in welt, aus welt. The Chassidic understanding is that you should make yourself holy through אשר קדשנו Before every mitzvah we say.(קדש עצמך במותר לך) performing the mitzvoth that with every mitzvah we become more holy. The mitzvah itself is the,במצותיו וצונו goal of all holiness. May the Almighty grant us the fulfillment of these two verses. If we are compassionate and holy, holy in God s holiness, My holiness is higher than yours, then we will be able to follow God s path. 13